Wednesday, May 17, 2023

The sadiqatayn of ʿAmr bin Shuʿayb

Amazingly, and possibly accidentally, Google Scholar yielded up Petra Sijpesteijn (and Camilla Adang)'s collection, Islam at 250 in memory of Gautier Juynboll. I found here, Scott Lucas on ʿAmr b. Shuʿayb. Which article Lucas might be expanding to a full book.

ʿAmr was named after his paternal ancestor ʿAmr bin al-ʿĀṣ. Lucas counts, from Ibn Hanbal in his musnad of this one's son ʿAbd Allāh, 195 ahadith by way of ʿAmr b. Shuʿayb. Lucas then evaluates their isnad-chains.

Some asanid claimed to be by way of Ḥajjāj b. Arṭāh (you may not have heard of him; d. 145/762) and others, from Muḥammad bin Isḥāq (I assume you know him). Lucas finds that these bundles share overlap with certain other tradents in this musnad, but not with each other. Lucas suspects that Ḥajjāj has relayed from one Muḥammad al-ʿArzamī whose reputation in Islam is rotten.

Ibn Isḥāq has his own problems. There's a chapter right before this one all about how Ibn Isḥāq massaged his own hadiths depending on his audience. Imam Malik famously hated the man. Ibn Hanbal has the (common) attitude that one must apply different rules to an historian than to a legalist; as a legalist himself, Ibn Hanbal will accept Ibn Isḥāq.

Lucas sees Ibn Isḥāq in parallel with Ibn Jurayj as ʿAbd al-Razzāq has related him. Even nonMuslims like Harald Motzki love Ibn Jurayj. Lucas concludes at least the Ibn Isḥāq / Ibn Jurayj synopsis as presenting a "real" ʿAmr collection, available to mid-late second/eighth century Meccans and Madinans.

The ʿArzamī collection, by contrast, seems a pseudepigraph. Lucas notes that much of its content is traceable to other transmitters, to the point of "witnessing" to the Constitution Of The Madina. Juynboll would deride this forged isnad as a "spider".

- but even forgeries, rather especially forgeries, are inspired by contemporary collections. A ṣadiqa of ʿAmr did exist.

As for what was in this book: ʿAmr related legal content and ascribed it all to the Prophet. ʿAmr was himself of al-Ṭāʾif. Now: was this actually Muḥammadan Jurisprudence? I am inclined to doubt this; I don't think Mecca was real. But it could well represent the jurisprudence of al-Ṭāʾif up to 118/736, Hishām's caliphate. Assign it alongside Muḥammad bin Abī Muḥammad in tafsīr. Or Motzki's work on ʿAtā bin Abī Rabaḥ. Or al-Hakam from Shuʿayb from Zuhrī.

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